Cinema
When the Tenth Month Comes
Bao giờ cho đến tháng Mười
Đặng Nhật Minh · 1984
Synopsis
A young peasant woman returns to the village after learning of the death of her husband, killed in action on the Cambodian border. Her father-in-law is dying; to spare him this grief, she hides the news and has the village schoolteacher write her false letters from the front. The lie holds, then spreads: it has to be kept up before the family and before the neighbours, and she bears her mourning alone to the rhythm of the work in the fields and the festivals of the calendar.
Context
The director wrote the screenplay alone, as for all his films. Lê Vân plays the lead, Nguyễn Hữu Mười the schoolteacher, and the music is by Phú Quang. It is the first Vietnamese film shown in the West after the war. A scene in which the heroine meets the dead of the village during a traditional festival made its reputation, and the censorship board demanded numerous cuts before authorising its release.
Who it is for
Eighty-two minutes in subtitled Vietnamese, at a slow pace. Knowing the context of the official letters announcing deaths at the front sheds light on the mainspring of the story.
Prizes and reception
Golden Lotus, prize for direction and prize for best actress at the national festival of 1985; one of the Vietnamese films most shown abroad.